A visit to the "Gods own country"

I have always wanted to visit this wonderful state in south-western most part of India.Hafis (my colleague at cisco) created this opportunity for me, by way of fixing his marriage right in time;). Given the popularity of rail transport in India, we booked the tickets well in advance of 2 months. Our boarding point was at 7.10 from Banglore(K.R.Puram) to Ernakulam on 5/6 Friday night. Had to WFH as I had to catch the evening train. As is the usual case, train arrived late of about 30 mins to K.R. Puram station.

We six ( Sanu, Sourabh, Venkat, Sunil, Ajith and myself) had reached the station well in time. TO train journey was not that great as our berths were split among different coaches. Reached Ernakulam by around 7am. We had lodging in Karthika Residency. Freshened up in about an Hour and got a scorpio booked to take us to Allepey backwaters. This place was around 80 Kms from our hotel. Reached here at around 11am and straight away got into the houseboat that we had booked in advance. We spent around 5 hours in the boat. The climate, the place its been, the ambience, the beverages, the company, were just ideal setting for a perfect weekend chillout. Intermittent drizzles are characteristic of this place and that just adds to the pleasant climate. After having savoured the aura of backwaters for more than 5 hours,we headed straight to cochin beach. Here the cleanliness was not upto mark. Nevertheless, the roaring water bringing with them enormous energy was a pleasant view. Spent sometime here and headed to marine drive at the Naval zone of Cochin. Got into a mini boat which took us around to view the ships of Indian Navy. The ride was dissapointing as it was raining heavily outside and the sun had already set, leaving us very less chance to enjoy the outside view of ships and ocean.Headed straight back to our hotel by about 8pm. Freshend up and left to Grooms house for dinner. Once back, enjoyed watching Ind/Bang T20 worldcup match in the hotel with the gang.Thus ended our first day of Kerala visit.

Had to wake up early as the bus to Kollam(place of marriage) would leave at 7.30 am from Hafis's place. The journey to Kollam was around 3-4 hrs. Raingods were showering all through the route. Reached the marriage choultry by around 11.30 am. It was a nice experience to attend marriage of other religion. Enjoyed the typical Kerala food. Got our train back to Bangalore from kollam at 2.00 pm. Spent the FRO journey playing cards, dumb charades and with some friendly badinages. The visit to as they say "Gods own country" remains one to cherish.

Snaps:

Gods own country

Random Thoughts....

* Got my camera(Canon Powershot SX110IS) delivered yesterday. Dont want to be a professional in this regard, but surely would like to capture all beautiful memories in life. I'm usually not an elec-savy guy and dont spend money on electronic gadgets. First major spend on elec item was my w810i(13.6k) mobile. Got this one mainly for the 2MP camera in it.After around 1.5 yrs of usage, it became a victim of the skills of some unknown pick pocketting veteran in Bangalore BMTC bus:(

* Tagged along with the G-gang ( T.S,Sharma & Naveen) to attend Rakshits engagement at Mudbidri (50 kms from Mangalore). Would cherish the journey, ambience, Mangalore's special ice-creams, beach and company of buddies from college days.

* Rafa loses to Soderling...Sigh! I have always detested domination.

* IPL ended last week. For yours truly, IPL has turned out to be very predictive.Infact won bets both times (no money business here:)) Wanted RR to win last year and DC this year!.... what was common among these?? Take a guess..

* First session of Lok Sabha begins.
New health minister's comments on on-screen smoking ban was shocking.He considers indian viewers are sensible enough and its impractical to ban on-screen smoking. Common, whom are you kidding when you have surveys which say 32% youth follow onscreen divas religiously. When you have seen so many innocnet children jumping of building expecting Shaktiman will come and save, when you have crazy fans worshiping idols of khushboo and namitha....
Discriminatory politics has already kicked off with allegations against our new railway minister making some chages in trains routers plying via Bihar. 2 trains have already been burnt.

* Air France flight 447 goes missing. No clue about whereabouts of 228 passengers. Lifes so unpredictable. So many lives, their dreams ,aspirations, all washed away in matters of minutes....:(( --- "Live life as if there's no tommorow"

* Its appraisal time. Have done lot more quality work than expected. Hoping not to be greeted by dissapointment this time around.